Running Is Hard
by Rambutans
Summary: Barry can break the sound barrier in the blink of an eye but when Wally tries all he breaks is a sweat. (Wally centric with birdflash if you squint.)


_A/N:_ Ugh I don't know what this is I just wanted to write about Wally... Anyway, I hope you enjoy it and reviews/critiques are super welcome!

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Wally runs. His shoes smear rubber across asphalt while his thighs burn and his stomach cramps. Barry can break the sound barrier in the blink of an eye but when Wally tries all he breaks is a sweat.

Everything turns to mud. Only bright colors catch his eye, streaking across his peripheral vision like paint dripping down a canvas or raindrops sliding over the windows of a speeding car. Little things disappear. Road signs, houses, people; Wally can't see them at all. He can't _focus_ on anything. Barry tells him to look at something. "Look at one thing and run toward it as fast as you can," but Wally can't look at one thing. He can look at the flickering blur of many tree trunks, or the fuzzy smudged horizon, but his feet are faster than his eyes and Wally can't concentrate.

If he pushes any harder his knees will buckle. His calves are already trembling and he can feel the soles of his shoes wearing thin. Having regenerative powers makes running barefoot at super speed possible, but not pleasant, so Wally tries to break out of the locomotion he's worked himself into. The muscles in his legs spasm under the effort of slowing down. They itch to give out beneath him, to send him flying down the freeway shoulder like a human projectile.

Decelerating consumes what little attention Wally can spare and he doesn't notice the silhouetted corn crops take form on either side of him, or the golden thread of clouds reflecting an already set sun at the edge of the deep sea sky. He also doesn't notice the bloated, half rotting raccoon on the side of the road. It's bones crunch under his shoe and his rhythm and balance is lost instantly. Wally does his best to roll through the fall. He thinks about Robin tumbling from buildings and gliding across rooftops and decides it's a lot harder than it looks when his forearm scrapes against sun split concrete and something cracks near his lower back.

Wally rolls four times before he slows enough to sit up. It takes minutes until he can focus his eyes on the road stretched out in front of him like a pale grey tongue. A groan spills from his lips but it's masked by a car horn blaring loud and long and if Wally were any slower he'd be pinned between two tires and cement instead of rolling to a stop at the edge of the dirt and sand shoulder. The car just keeps going, sleek and black and content in the knowledge that Wally is out of its way.

When he sits up and pulls his phone from his back pocket, Wally knows what cracked during his roll. The glass is split into a silk thin web across his home screen, but the message center still opens when he touches the blinking 1 at the top of the screen.

Wally expects the texts to be from his dad in the usual fashion: all caps lock half sentences asking where Wally went and what he thought he was doing leaving the house without talking to him or his mother first, but none of them were from his dad and _all_ of them were from Dick.

_From Dick May 21__st__, 12:12PM_

_ I finally hacked into bruce's personal computer in less than 3 minutes. Congratulate me. It's a new personal record._

_From Dick May 21__st__, 12:14PM_

_ y/n should I change his background to nic cage?_

_From Dick May 21__st__, 12:14PM_

_ I did it._

_From Dick May 21__st__, 12:20PM_

_ Where r u why aren't u enjoying this with me? All of his folder icons are now also pics of nic cage._

_From Dick May 21__st__, 12:25PM_

_ PSA: bruce's new home page is nic cage_

_From Dick May 21__st__, 8:43PM_

_ Bruce found nic. Pls send help._

Wally tries to reply but half of his screen is unresponsive so he just snorts at it and stuffs it back into his pocket. Another car speeds past and honks at him. When he stands up, Wally inspects the scrape on his forearm. Grit and rocks have been slivered into the thin exposed meat and he picks out the biggest pieces before his skin heals over them. Then he checks the cooling rubber of his shoes and figures he's got just about enough left to make it to Gotham before it wears all the way off. When Wally runs, he imagines Gotham's gargoyles and spindly sky scrapers shimmering at the edge of the sun soaked horizon and he doesn't notice how fast he's going until he's already there.


End file.
